It is that one day in our life as citizens that truly brings us together, regardless of who we vote for.
It is that day when we stand alongside, help each other and be a community of shared goals and hopes for a better future.
Just as we came out of our building gate, voting parchi and voter's card in hand, sans a phone for once, a lady from the neighbouring building was just getting into a rickshaw.
Barely had the rickshaw started moving, she stopped, poked her head out and asked, "Are you going to vote? Why don't you just hop in?"
Now that is something that would not happen on any other day, but then, of course, today was no ordinary day.
Today was Voting Day -- and there is always a sense of excitement one encounters on the way to the polling booth on the day India votes, even in a city like Mumbai which does not have a good voting record.
We politely declined the lady's offer of a rickshaw ride and told her we looked forward to the short walk to the garden where our polling booth was located.
Barely had we taken a few steps further that a car stopped beside us. It was another gentleman from another building in our lane who was taking his mum to vote.
"Would you like a ride?" offered the neighbour graciously with a wide smile.
We smiled and politely refused one more time, and he drove off with a wide grin. "I have voted, but taking my mother to Juhu where her booth is," he said with a thumbs up.
There is something about Voting Day that brings in a sense of community and neighbourliness among us. People will offer to help, look at your voting slips, direct you to polling booths, nod and smile at you.
The voters can be easily spotted from a distance, walking with an air of purpose.
It provides a great context to start conversations with complete strangers.
A lady caught up with me and just like that picked up a conversation about how our voting booth had been moved after decades to a new location.
"I liked the previous one. I hope this one is as well organised as the last one," she said as we walked together for a while before she overtook me.
Then there was this elderly lady walking ahead whose laces had come undone. "Ma'am your laces have opened," we warned her and asked a security guard sitting outside one of the buildings to give her his chair so that she could sit and tie her laces.
The lady was horrified. She thought we were telling the security guard to tie her laces! On understanding what we actually meant, she said, "No, no, I just have trouble bending," as she put her foot on the parapet around a wayside tree to fix the shoelace.
We have walked around our neigbourhood so many times in the nearly three decades spent there, but nary have had so many conversations with unknown people who live around us in the area.
But then, like I said, this was no ordinary day, it was Voting Day, and everyone who stepped out perhaps felt the same.
It felt good.
On reaching the municipal garden where our booth was among several other booths, a policeman directed us to ours.
There was no queue. It took less than five minutes to register my vote. The staff was polite and professional. The booth was quiet, no unnecessary talk or noise.
There was a hand sanitiser on the table on the right on the way out, and small bottles of mineral water kept outside.
The entire polling station was wonderfully well-organised and absolutely clean.
A big shout out to the Election Commission staff at the Lokhandwala Garden polling station. It couldn't be smoother or more efficient than what you guys did!
In the true Indian way, where nothing is complete without a good meal, we made our way to a popular restaurant for onion rava dosa and strawberry milkshake (which by the way is in season now, the server said).
As expected, it was thronging with the 'post-voting' crowd, all tucking into morning breakfast.
We had just about ordered that in walked in the sitting MLA seeking re-election, Dr Bharti Lavekar with a small group.
She walked in and sat at a table in the air conditioned section of the restaurant, enjoying her breakfast as much as the others sitting at different tables.
On the way back, as we entered our lane another gentleman from one of the buildings, nodded at us, and asked, "Voted?"
"Yes," we said with a grin.
"Thank you! Thank you!" he exclaimed, just as another elderly neighbour was being taken pillion on a scooter to vote by one of the boys living in our lane.
"I am going to vote," he said, waving cheerily from the scooter.
If Voting Day is meant to be special, it was. Like it always has been on every election day.
It is that one day in our life as citizens that truly brings us together, regardless of who we vote for. It is that day when we stand alongside, help each other and be a community of shared goals and hopes for a better future.
This morning, on Voting Day, was that day for many of us.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
